


Unforgivable Things

by 14dinocats



Category: Because of Winn-Dixie - All Media Types
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:48:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26940898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/14dinocats/pseuds/14dinocats
Summary: I don’t remember much of my marriage. I was drunk every evening and panicking every morning.“Elizabeth” Matthew would say, in that patient way of his. Always so patient. “Eliza, you’re drinking too much. I can help you.”But he couldn’t help me, because the drinking wasn’t the problem. The reason for the drinking was the problem. And the reason was that I hated when he touched me.-------Why India Opal's mother left, and what she did once she was gone.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 2





	Unforgivable Things

**Author's Note:**

> I love this book so much. I read it last week and just started wondering about what would make India Opal's mother behave like she did. I wondered if she was maybe a lesbian, and then I wrote this. This has very little relationship to the story of the book. 
> 
> I tried to capture some of the same forgiving spirit that is in the book. It doesn't come naturally to me, so I like to re-read as a reminder. 
> 
> Happy to be the fourth work in the "Because of Winn-Dixie" tag :)

“Do you believe in God?” I asked Patty as she handed the bottle back to me.

It was a cold night, but we were lying pressed together, her arm on my arm. Her thigh warm against mine. The sky was clear, not even wisps of clouds. I could see all the stars and constellations. I was good at naming the constellations, and finding their shapes. It would have been a perfect night for stargazing if I wasn’t already drunk.

“I would like to believe in God,” Patty said “but nobody ever taught me how.”

I tried to see heaven. That was a game I played with myself a lot. I would look up the stars and try to find an angel. The sky looked like a dark bowl placed over me. I was a trapped bug, a little cricket about to be taken outside or be squashed. If I had seen an angel it would have been so easy to know that Matthew was right, but I never saw one. I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to keep looking.

“My husband could have taught you all about god.”

“You have a husband?” Patty moved away from me. I missed her warmth. I didn’t know what I had done wrong.

“Yeah, he’s a preacher. He’s real good at teaching about God. He was a missionary in India. That’s why my daughter’s called India.”

“You have a daughter? Shit.”

“Yeah. I left them.”

“Is that why you’re in rehab?”

Oh. I remembered that I wasn’t telling anyone that I had a daughter, and I remembered why.

_Think of India. Do it for her. You need to get sober and be there for your daughter._

I had heard it from every single person. The women, the church, my family. Matthew had said it the most, because he didn’t know he could want better than me. And he didn’t understand how I couldn’t love that daughter. My father even said it to me. My father who taught me how to drink would say _‘Go to rehab and be there for her.’_ Goddammit. I used to do everything for that child. Wasn’t there any point in doing it for the sake of myself?

“I’m not going back to her.”

Patty frowned. I frowned back, wondering how I had messed it up.

“We should go to bed” she said. Patty hid the bottle back in the bag, back in the drain pipe. Her hand was strong and warm as she pulled me to my feet, but she let go so quickly. No-one was awake to see us slip back in the side door. Nobody got to rehab without knowing how to make a quiet midnight entrance.

*

I don’t remember much of my marriage. I was drunk every evening and panicking every morning.

“Elizabeth” Matthew would say, in that patient way of his. Always so patient. “Eliza, you’re drinking too much. I can help you.”

But he couldn’t help me, because the drinking wasn’t the problem. The reason for the drinking was the problem. And the reason was that I hated when he touched me. He didn’t touch me a lot. He was a good man. I tensed up whenever her put a hand on so much as my shoulder, and Matthew knew that. How could you not notice? He didn’t touch me a lot. But we had a daughter together, so he touched me enough for it to hurt. We slept side by side in the narrow bed of our trailer home. Something of him was always touching me. A hand, a foot, his breath. I ran the shower hot until the water ran out and could still never get clean.

“Elizabeth, won’t you let me hold you?”

“It’s too hot, you don’t want to hold me.” I tried to say it like I was doing him a favour.

I kept putting goalposts in the future. _When I marry him, that’s when I will feel like a real woman. That’s when I will want him, like God says I should._ But the wedding day came and went and nothing about me changed except my last name. I still felt like a child playing grown up, missing my momma, and my garden, and my dog. I thought I would stand in front of the Church and God and feel something shift in me when I had to say my vows.

“to love and to cherish, till death do us part”

Matthew meant every word. I sickened myself by hoping death would part us sooner rather than later.

He was the pastor at the Church, and I sat in the front row wanting to burn the place down with me inside. _In six months, I’ll belong, I’ll have friends, I’ll be normal._ I told myself over and over that I would just have to wait. Every Sunday I listened for the voice of God. I listened so hard and so patiently. I would stand at the door at nights and looks for the angels. The six months passed and the women in the pews still judged me. My hair was never high enough. My cookies burnt for the bake sale. They would never recover from the time I wore slacks to Sunday service. 

“Give them a chance” Matthew said “They’re good people, but everyone has flaws.”

He kissed my temple and sat down in front of his open bible. I went to find a drink.

*

In group therapy, it was Patty’s turn to share her story.

“My father left when I was young. I think he went to prison, nobody ever talked about it. Mama was out working all the time. I got mixed up with bad kids on the street while she was out of the house. They gave me alcohol and I liked how it made me feel. Mama never even knew. I’ve been drinking for 17 years and I’m barely 30. Nobody in my family knows I’m here.”

Donna was the woman who ran the group sessions. She wore a dashiki and liked to think that she was a calming presence. Donna nodded faux-thoughtfully.

“How did you know it was time to do something about your problem?”

Patty took a deep breath. She held her hands still between her thighs. Something in my heart clenched to see her look so nervous.

“Alcohol was beginning to affect my personal life.”

“Can you elaborate on that?” Donna smiled tightly and tapped her pencil.

Patty gulped out the words “I was in love with a woman, but she didn’t want me because I was drunk. I embarrassed her.”

I froze, melded to my seat. I must have misheard. My heart felt fluttery.

“Did you say you embarrassed a boyfriend of yours?” Donna pointedly put the emphasis on the _boy_ of boyfriend.

“No ma’am,” Patty was curled into herself, “it weren’t a boy.”

“Well, that’s certainly very disturbing. Thank you for sharing, Patricia. I want to reassure you that if you get in control of your drinking, you will also be more likely to get in control of your homosexual urges.”

Patty nodded demurely at Donna, and caught my eye across the room with a smirk. I couldn’t breathe. I felt my face heat. I thought about how Patty felt lying next to me on the ground last night. I heard her words echo inside me _‘I was in love with a woman.’_ Donna was droning on about something. _‘I was in love with a woman.’_ My legs carried my out of the room, out past reception with a nurse hollering after me. _‘I was in love with a woman.’_ I went straight to the nearest bar and ordered a drink.

*

Matthew was so happy when I told him I was pregnant that he cried. I was almost 12 weeks when I told him, I kept wishing it wasn’t true. He glowed like the sun. Don’t let it be said that he didn’t love me. The way he treated me through that pregnancy was a declaration of commitment and care. He was too happy to notice that I was suffocating. _When the baby comes, when I look in its eyes, that’s when I’ll start to be the perfect mother._ She was ugly, when she arrived. So fragile and crumpled. She looked like me. She was named after India, where Matthew did years of missionary work. Middle name Opal, after Matthew’s perfect mother. She got no names from me. I think I knew then, that I was too broken for her, that she would need to be more connected to her daddy than she was to me. I wasn’t a good wife, let alone a pastor’s wife. If this child couldn’t fix me then there weren’t nothing in the world that could. I started drinking more after she came. I wasn’t brave enough to run away properly, so I just escaped for a night or two at a time. I was always back in time to curl my hair for church. 

*

It was early winter when I found Patty again. I was sick of being cold. The moments of pretend warmth I got from the bottle had stopped being enough. I found her address in the phone book and rang her doorbell on a Wednesday night. This was when my weekend usually started. I was craving alcohol, and telling myself to crave Patty instead. She would save me, surely. She knew something I didn’t about how to live.

“Eliza?” Patty had her arms crossed.

“Are you sober?” I asked.

Patty nodded “For almost three years. Are you?”

“I’m trying to be. Can you stop me drinking tonight?”

“Eliza,”

I could see she was going to say no. I knew where the nearest bottle shop was, and I had my route planned. I started estimating how long it would take me to get there. Would a bus come quickly or would it be worth getting a taxi?

“Come on in.”

Patty held the door open for me. I had a taste in my mouth, bitter and soft. I think it was my tongue rejoicing that I would never drink again.

*

Patty made me a cup of peppermint tea and sat me down on her worn couch.

“I can’t stop you drinking, Eliza. You have to take responsibility yourself.”

“I know. I think I’m ready now.”

Patty looked good. Her hair was cut short now and it made her jaw look strong.

“What have you been up too?” she asked over her mug “You left rehab real quick.”

“I’ve just been drinking.” We nodded at each other. There was no pity in her eyes. “Something you said scared me.” I admitted. _‘I was in love with a woman’_ had been the song my heart had drummed to since I heard her say it.

Patty nodded again. “I thought that might be it. Why’d you come back?”

“I’m still scared.” I whispered.

“Me too.” Patty said.

“You?”

“I don’t think it ever goes away, the fear, not fully.”

There was a foot of space between us on the sofa. The cushions were sloped, gently letting us fall towards each other.

“You should hate me.” I said in a rush “Your father left you, and I left my family. We’re exactly the same.”

“If I was your daughter, I probably would hate you.”

“Oh.”

“But I’m not your child. You can’t hurt me like that. You can hurt me in other ways, and you already have, and you will again, and I’ll do the same to you probably.”

Patty put her mug on the coffee table and turned her body towards me. Her eyes were very clear. I wanted her.

“That doesn’t sound very healthy.” I said.

“That’s just how the world is, Elizabeth. Everyone’s done something unforgivable.” Patty took my mug and placed in on the table next to hers.

“Have you done something unforgivable?” I asked, my chest tight.

“I think so.” Patty took my hands. “But I didn’t do it to you.”

I couldn’t meet her eye, so I looked at the place our hands were joined.

“I don’t hate you for the things you’ve done.” I said.

“I don’t hate you either.”

I could hear Patty smiling, so I dug into my courage and looked up at her face. I wasn’t a wife anymore. I wasn’t a church woman or a mother, and I was trying not to be a drinker. I never saw heaven in the stars no matter how hard I looked. When I looked in Patty’s eyes that first night that she made me peppermint tea, I began to think that I could be something brand new.


End file.
